you and I and she or he
by sugar free vanilla
Summary: "Two pink lines. On all fourteen of the little white sticks that line her sink. And maybe pregnancy tests aren't a hundred percent reliable, but Kate's more than aware that false positives are pretty rare." Season 3 AU - oneshot.


**So this was a little series of four tumblr ficlets that I'm cramming into a oneshot here, based on a prompt in which Kate gets pregnant via Castle at the beginning of season three.**

**Posting it here for ease of reading and for those who don't use tumblr.**

**And I'll chill out with the fic-posting now and give anyone who has me on alert's inboxes a rest, haha. **

**Thanks to Bogi for everything.**

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><p>Well, <em>shit.<em>

Two pink lines. On all fourteen of the little white sticks that line her sink. And maybe pregnancy tests aren't a hundred percent reliable, but Kate's more than aware that false positives are pretty rare.

_Crap._

It was meant to be a quick screw to get him out of her system - she laughs at that, because how can she not? The irony of it is too much; she's not sure Richard Castle could be _more_ in her system than he's gonna be for the next… what, seven and a half months?

Jesus.

She hasn't spoken to him since that night six weeks ago, the one she'd instigated and he'd enthusiastically participated in. Hasn't seen his face since she watched it crumple in hurt and confusion when she sent him away and told him she didn't want to see him again. Ever. Refusing to risk her heart after the debacle before the summer. Unable to resist the desire that's been alive and wild in her since a blue gaze met hers at a book party so long ago.

It hadn't stopped him calling, not at first - but it's been two weeks of radio silence and it seems like he's finally taken the hint. Just as she needs to take it back. How's she meant to face him, now? Tell him she's carrying his child. And how's he meant to trust her return to his life?

Truth be told, she's been on the verge of going to him and asking him back to the precinct for a while, her stubborn nature all that held her back from seeking him out before now. She misses him. Desperately. And yet, if she shows up on his doorstep with this news, she doubts he'll believe her. The thought of him thinking she's only returning to him because she's _pregnant _(the thought itself is too much, panic rising in her throat at the very prospect of her… condition) is not one she even wants to entertain, her mind conjuring up a picture of cold blue eyes slamming a door in her face.

Unless… she doesn't tell him? Nobody needs to know she's pregnant. Not until she decides what to do, at least. Obviously if she… keeps it, it'll become blatant soon enough. If she doesn't - well, then she and a doctor, bound by a Hippocratic oath to keep it confidential, are the only ones who'll ever even have a clue.

The only problem is she isn't sure that she's comfortable making this decision without him, guilt rising hot and thick and choking in her throat. Because, yeah, it might be her body. But the… embryo (not baby, she won't say _baby) _is theirs.

Dread clenches its cold, unforgiving fist around her lungs, making it hard to breathe, the scarf she wraps around her neck near-suffocating as she hurries out of her apartment before she can change her mind.

"Broome and Crosby," she tells the cab driver.

She owes him this much. He deserves to know.

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><p>It's with a great deal of hesitance she knocks on the door. The tentative rap of her knuckles on the solid oak of the door echoes the tense thrumming of her pulse, every heartbeat ricocheting from each corner of her brain with pounding resonance; she's dizzy with it, the rush of anxious blood and the twisting whirlpool of malignant thoughts threatening to drown her.<p>

"Castle," she releases in a haze of breath, the near-whisper grazing her throat in its escape. "_Castle_… I-"

"Detective Beckett," he greets her. Although, would that imply a degree of warmth? Because there is none in the way he says her name. There's no hint of anything familiar in his tone - no playful laughter, none of that gorgeous affection that normally laces through his normal intonation of her name, not even the way he normally exaggerates the plosives, wraps them around his tongue deliciously. No. Just… bland. Something she'd never thought Richard Castle could be. "What do you want?"

"I…" She swallows thickly. It seems she's lost her nerve, and her voice with it. "I want to talk to you. About something important."

He's had a frozen, polite smile on his face this whole time (although she's sure that he fully intended for her to see the ice in his eyes), and only now does it crack, splinter, shatter; the frosted affability finally breaking, revealing the dark, angry expanse behind the mask of cold.

"You want to talk to me? _Now_?" He laughs, but there's no joy in it. It's a harsh, malicious bark, and it bites at her. It's so _wrong_ coming from this man who has come to symbolise light and hope and respite for her. "You're about two weeks too late, Detective. Or did you think I wouldn't take the hint? Planned for me to keep chasing you like a pathetic little… I don't know? A puppy? A lemming? Let's not forget you told me you never wanted to see me again." She opens her mouth to say something, anything, but he raises his hand to signal he's not finished. "And you know what? I feel the same way about you. I thought - I thought we'd finally gotten past the games. Of running hot and cold. I wanted to make a _go_ of it. Of us. But you just used me. So, if you'd please leave, I'd like to get on with my life."

She's standing stunned and distressed and stung by his tirade, and it's not until the door is nearly closed in her face does she even realised he's moved to shut it. It's a thousand times worse than she'd expected, his awful, glacial gaze spitting shards of frigid stone that lodge in her gut while his brutal words leave her eyes burning with unshed tears.

It's at the very last second that she manages to wedge her foot in the door, squeezing through the tiny gap, pushing it wider as best she can until she stands inside his apartment.

"Castle. Castle, I _need_-"

"I need you to leave. Don't you think you've done enough?" The anger has drained from him, left him drained. She can see it in the suddenly haggard lines of his face, the rumpled state of his hair as he rakes his and through it, once, twice. "Please, just-"

"Castle, I-"

"Beckett, _please!_ Just g-"

"Castle! I need to-"

"Get out. Don't make me beg, go, leave me-"

"_Castle!"_

He's finally caught onto the urgency of his tone, doleful blue eyes raising to meet her tear-blurred stare. A deep, shuddering breath rattles her spine.

"I'm pregnant."

"You're - _what?" _He's shell-shocked, taken aback, knocked for six, shocked, baffled, disbelieving, incredulous, wide-eyed…

A drove of descriptors burn in a hurried thread through her mind, a steam train that captures her whole attention - the loud ostentatiousness of them obscuring every other thought in a thick cloud of blackened smoke. She's not sure why her brains decided to focus on them so suddenly - maybe a self-preservation method, because whatever thoughts there are that she's unable to reach through the fog have a wave of nausea stirring in the pit of her stomach.

Oh. Unless that's the… baby. That thought disperses the obscurity in an instant, opens her up to the fierce dread and the insecurity and the fear and every unpleasant notion that reaches her just then, his gaze unreadable as he stands stock-still, unmoving.

Still, she does what she always does when faced with a sea of her own weakness - reaches for that unyielding, immovable strength that has served as her solid ground for over a decade.

"You heard me," all the ferocity in the world couldn't prevent the slight waver in her tone, but she's firm despite the tremor of her voice, recovering it's force with the stony-set of her face. And maybe it's not _fair _of her to assume control here, take the reins of the situation when she's just dropped a huge bombshell on him, after she's come crawling back into his life after cutting him from hers. Perhaps it's unjust but she _needs _it, needs to feel she has a handle or things or she's going to crumble.

"You're pregnant." Castle swipes a hand over his face as if trying to smooth the tired, hurt lines away but only succeeds in rubbing them deeper. He looks a decade older in that moment, worn and exhausted and confused and a surge of self-loathing ripples through her veins, a stinging acid that reaches her heart, dissolves it in her chest.

"I'm pregnant," she confirms, simply. Stands her ground - doesn't attempt to move towards him, but nor will she avert her eyes from where they are fixed on where his would be if he would just look _up._ She needs to see his eyes, to know what he's thinking.

"And it's mine?"

Oh. Oh. Oh. She hadn't - it hadn't even _dawned _on her that he might doubt that. That he'd think she'd even be able to move on so fast. It hurts, the lack of faith in her feelings for him, and it's stupid, ridiculous because she had given him every indication she _didn't _care about him. What right does she have to be offended that he wouldn't know?

Logic, however, does nothing to abate the visceral ache behind her ribs.

"Yeah. Yeah, definitely yours." She can't help it, stoic mask falling to shreds for a second, her tone wounded. "Who else's would it be?"

He looks at her as if she's grown an extra head. "Demming's? I mean - I know that we weren't… we weren't exactly as careful as we could have been, obviously the pill isn't a hundred percent effective. But even if you and he are more - cautious, then there's still a chance you know?"

"D- _Demming? _I haven't seen him outside of the precinct since May." Except, of course, he doesn't know that. Did he- "You thought I was _with _him when we slept together?"

"I don't know that I'd call it sleeping together considering you threw me out the second the deed was done-"

"And I'm _sorry _for that Castle, you have to believe-"

"I don't _have _to believe anything, _Detective,_" he snaps at her. "And I figured - I thought that you being with Demming would have explained _why…_ but I guess that was just you. Not wanting me around any more, I get it - it's fine." And he does sound like it's _fine_, entirely accepting of that preposterousness as if it makes sense, as if he's used to that and her heart wrenches with it, twisting painfully, pulling apart at the seams and -

"_Castle, _no! Listen-" He has to believe, has to know that it's not that she didn't care about him, for him. Has to understand it was the _opposite_, that she was scared, that she pushed him away because he was getting precariously close to slipping all the way through her walls.

She was as scared of trapping him in that prison with her as she was of letting him close, truth be told.

"Forget it, Kate," he waves her off as she tries to ignore the hot rush of blood to her cheeks at his enunciation of her given name. A hand swipes carelessly through the air dismissively, rises to pinch the bridge of his nose as he finally glances up, finally meets her gaze. His eyes are dark, heavy with some unfamiliar, nondescript element that shields him from her.

"So. What are you planning to do with the baby?"

"Beckett?"

"I…" The words die on her lips and she trails off.

"Beckett," he repeats, slowly, the pink flesh of his lips stretching around his careful enunciation of her name. "What are you going to do with the baby?"

She doesn't know, hasn't decided - can't he see that's why she's _here?_

"I haven't… I don't think it's a choice I can make on my own…?" Trailing off into a question, insecurity crumbles the strength of what was meant to be a firm statement. Still his eyes are cold, and she's suddenly scared that he doesn't want to have a role in the decision. Or worse - that he's already entirely sure of what he wants her to do and-

-suddenly she realises that she wants this… baby, his use of that word emotive, triggering some archaic instinct to protect the life in her womb, to love it. She wants this.

She's just not sure she wants it without him.

She could do it, she's sure - Montgomery, Espo and Ryan would be wonderful male role models, the support of her father, Lanie…

But what if one day she didn't come home, left her kid as good as orphaned in a world where his or her father doesn't want them?

It's bad enough that she's facing the prospect of a world where Richard Castle doesn't desire

_her._

Vibrations purr through the air, a low insistent buzz that has her instinctively reaching into her pocket, but it's not her phone that's ringing. Turning towards the sound she sees his cell shuddering on the little table by the door where lie his keys, shifting closer and closer to the edge of the surface with every oscillation.

On instinct, she lunges to grab it just before the expensive device can shimmy its way over the precipice, hands it to him straight away. But she can't avoid the glimpse she gets of the caller ID, strokes of shining blonde hair framing perfect, porcelain skin. The flash of dazzling teeth, glossy pink lips wrapping around the brilliance of the smile, the undeniable beauty of the woman captured so flawlessly in this photo.

_Gina._

Jealously broils unfounded in her stomach, hot and bubbling, surging upwards and cresting like a wave, the break of it splashing with such force that heavy droplets spill everywhere, tainting every inch of her blood.

It hadn't occurred to her that he might still be with his ex-wife. She'd seen no sign of the two of them in the papers and she'd been sure his publisher would have insisted on getting their picture printed bright and bold on Page Six to boost sales of his latest book. She'd let the absence of any such photos buoy her heart, relieve some of the choking pressure of jealousy lying oppressively in her lungs.

He declines the call, slips his phone into his pocket without hesitance and hope shimmers through the envy because he's chosen over his ex-wife forward slash… girlfriend?

"Are you…?" She trails off, but her tone leaves no room for confusion as to what she's asking him.

"Gina and I?" His voice is sharp, eyes cutting. "Do you really think I'd have had sex with you were I still with her? I'm not a _cheater, _Beckett.

"No – no, I know you're not. I just thought… perhaps after?" She's hit a sore spot there, wonders if there's some part of her past she's not privy to (there's a lot of that, she realises) to explain it. It's more than just offense at what she'd never meant as an accusation; the scab of an old wound has been ripped away, the evidence of it bleeding agony into the stormy blue of his irises.

"I only stopped calling you two weeks ago. Hardly enough time to move on."

"Didn't take you any time at all before the summer," she can't help but blurt, voice rife with months-old bitterness.

"Excuse me?"

"I thought – I thought you liked me. Like, _liked_ me liked me." And now she's reverted to grade-school speak. Great. What is it about this man that makes it so hard for her to find the words to make her point? "And then you rocked up to the precinct ex-wife in tow, claiming you'd call. And then you _didn't."_

His hands fly into the air, uncontrolled in his anger. "Because I thought you didn't want me to. Because _Demming! _Because you didn't want things to be 'awkward', so I decided to fix that for you."

"I didn't mean-"

"It's not what you _say_, Beckett. It's what the other person hears."

"Well, maybe if you'd just given me a chance to _speak _at your send-off party then you'd have heard exactly what you wanted to."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," a deep breath, "that I broke things off with Demming. And I was gonna tell you I wanted to accept your invitation to the Hamptons. And I was hoping that when we were there…" She stops, too much hurt between them for her to voice the fruitless fantasies she'd harboured. Yet the stagnant silence holds her meaning faithfully and she watches as he closes his eyes. As if he's shutting out the information that he can't get a handle on how to process.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he manages finally. "Was I supposed to know this? Was I supposed to just hang around at your heels in the hope that you'd ditch him? I thought you were _happy – _that he was what you wanted. And I was trying to give you that without making you feel guilty about how I clearly felt for you. So you just – you _can't _put that on me. _You can't."_

"I know, I know, sorry, I'm sorry – I…" A string of apologies isn't going to get through to him, his body language closing him off from her each time the word spills from her. He doesn't want platitudes – he needs the story.

"I can see that now, Castle – but I was just… I was heartbroken Castle," he scoffs quietly as if he doubts he ever had enough of a hold on her to achieve anything close. "Fine, don't believe me. But it's the truth. And every day that you didn't call; every day I looked at that chair by my desk and it was empty; every time I burnt myself on that damned coffee machine because you weren't there to save me the injury… It got worse. And then hurt turned to anger and… then I called you. Wanted you out of my system so I could move on. I thought I'd been wrong about how you felt about me. On a deeper level, you know? I mean, the… attraction… was never a secret. But the whole Gina thing just made me think-"

"We were together," there's an apology in his voice as he interrupts. His words sting but she recognises them for a peace offering of sorts – a piece of his summer in return for what she's just told him. "Just while we were at the Hamptons. Maybe a month? She left before I did. But we knew it was just a fling – things were always easier out there. We don't work in the city, we learnt that the hard way." He shrugs, smiling without humour. "Besides. We both knew my heart wasn't in it."

"And where was your heart…?" It's bold of her to ask, unfair of her given the current situation. But she thinks she knows what his answer is going to be and she's desperately greedy to hear the words, selfish as that may be.

"With you," reluctance tears the words apart, shredding them with grief, tainting what she's so wanted to escape his parted lips. His words sound final, no joy in them. Just a tired resignation and the hint of history. Like he's moving on.

"Mine was with you. The whole time," she swears to him. "Still is."

"Then _why? _Why kick me out of your life, Kate? Why use me?"

"I wasn't-" She swallows the denials and shows him her heart instead. "God, Rick. You're in my veins. Every single part of me is saturated with you and it was _killing _me. And I thought you – I thought you weren't… there. And I couldn't deal with that. So I showed you the door. As for your calls after? I'm… stubborn, Castle. Stupidly so, mulish, whatever else you want to call it. And answering you – it would mean I'd have to explain to you. And I _couldn't, _I just – I couldn't. And I am _so _sorry for that, Rick."

"And then you found out you were pregnant."

Oh. _Oh. _She'd completely, honest-to-God forgotten and "No, no – that's not it. Not at all, I swear. I was going to cave anyway – missing you was _unbearable, _Castle. I was waiting until we caught some case I knew you'd love, hoping that the mystery would override some of your anger. Give me the chance to apologise. And then… this."

"This."

"The pregnancy."

"Our child." Oh, he wants it. It's audible in his voice, the warmth that wraps around the two syllables yearning and sweet. Like how he speaks of Alexis. Like how he'd used to speak to her, although without the undercurrent of sexual tension.

"Our… child."

"You want them?"

"I want them… with you." His face clouds. She hastens to reformulate, clarify her meaning before he can take it as a bribe, maybe even a threat. "I mean – I'm not saying you have to be with me. God – no, I just mean. I need you to be this child's father. I want that for them.

Especially with my job being so dangerous; I don't want to ever leave this child as good as orphaned."

"You're not going to get yourself killed." It's a statement but also a warning, a '_don't you dare'_ echoing clearly between them.

"Is that - a yes?"

"Was it really ever in any doubt, Kate?" His voice is soft, almost laughing. As if it would be ridiculous for him to shun this child – and God, it is. He's such a good father, thrives in the role.

"No." She smiles, shy and genuine. "No, I guess not. So we're doing this?"

"Yeah, we are." He finally gives her a grin, lopsided and adorable and it sends her heart galloping in her chest, mixing with apprehension and fear and excitement until the emotions tangle into an inseparable mess.

"I'm scared," she admits. His entire being softens at her honesty, the confession of weakness such a rarity for her.

"It's not gonna be easy," he tells her.

"Wow, Castle. How reassuring of you." She hopes they're back in a place where she can roll her eyes at him. If not… Well, too late now. Oops.

"But we'll work it out along the way, okay? You and I."

"You and I?" She echoes, mouth dry.

He smiles. It's a tiny thing, lips pressed shut, but it's real. "Yeah," he promises. "That too."

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><p><strong>tumblr: castleholic<strong>

**twitter: _sfv**

**(I kind of gave up on the name of this fic. Working titles included 'preggers KB' '****'kate the pregnant lady by castle: the full story' (thanks (?) bogi) and 'embryo? embryno'. It was a struggle).**


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